


Of Hell

by kakumei



Series: Things I Wouldn't Do (But Did) [1]
Category: Saints Row
Genre: Catholicism, Guns, Other, Religion, Street Fight, Swearing, Violence, drive-by
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 16:46:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2659190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kakumei/pseuds/kakumei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angelo Pineda is trapped in the middle of a gunfight that wreaks havoc and carnage in Shivington, until he's saved by an enigmatic pair who offer him a way out of his troubles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Hell

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the same universe as my drabble collection "Pretty Frightful Things" featuring my Matt Miller/Hana Maeda ship. Angelo's story uses a lot of Judeo-Christian references; he was raised Catholic and is Filipino so it's important to his character. Seeing as it's called 'Saints Row' I thought the references were appropriate too; I hope no one minds or is too bothered by them. This takes place in SR1, right at the beginning of the series.
> 
> A big thanks and credit to Badger and Chy for their beta work!

‘ _Anak[i]? Where are you? Are you coming home_?’ Angelo’s mother asked over the phone. Despite her fretfulness, she coddled him with a trilling, affectionate tone as if Angelo hadn’t aged a year over five.

“I’m on my way Ma,” answered Angelo. “I’m uh... just going to take a while.”

“ _Bakit?! Ano ang yari mo?![ii]_ ”

The lanky twenty-two-year-old kicked a pebble at his flat tire. “I passed through Shivington and hit a pothole or something. I already called the tow truck, they should be here in twenty minutes.” Before he finished his sentence, Angelo pulled his cell phone half an inch away from his ear.

“ _Ayyy...! You were in Shivington? Anak, it’s so dangerous there! You know.._.” Angelo’s mother continued on in a potpourri of English and Tagalog about the miscreants lurking about in the night, waiting to shank poor boys like him for drug money. But Angelo didn’t need the lecture -- he was well aware of the dangers surrounding him while standing under a half-bent lamp post. Freckle Bitches wrappers and heroin needles littered the gutter and clogged up several storm drains. A prostitute and her pimp leered at him from the crosswalk across the street. (Though, the lady seemed nice enough. During their twenty-second conversation she’d only asked if he wanted a ‘good time,’ but Angelo was too shy to tell her the fur lining her pleather jacket couldn’t do anything to win her his interest.)

Angelo’s mother screeched for his attention from the phone.

“I was listening!” the young man pleaded. “Twenty minutes, I swear. No Dad doesn’t have to pick me up. Basta! [iii] I’ll be fine. I will call you when the tow truck comes. Yes, I have the groceries, Ma. Ok. Ok, ok. Bye, Ma.”

Angelo clicked his little Nokia phone shut and stuffed it into his jean pocket, then did another short sweep around his car perimeter, on the alert for any would-be assailants. When nothing jumped out at him, he let out a deep sigh and leaned heavily against the driver’s door of his light blue Destiny. He pep talked himself up a little, but after waiting half an hour for the tow truck to show the rapid thumping under his ribcage had yet to ease up. Only he was foolish enough to go to Shivington at night. His poor mother -- she certainly had a right to be anxious and angry with him. Going for the Red Light district’s bargain supermarket at nine PM was a huge mistake. In the past three weeks, an arsonist struck one of the strip clubs and there’d been two stabbings.

Truthfully he would have felt more at ease if he had let his father come for him, but Angelo didn’t want to burden his parents any further. So he stood alone a little while longer, between his mother’s car and the abandoned liquor store across the street, feeling less at ease as the twilight’s last ribbons of color faded from the sky. The young man hitched up the heavy grocery bag leaning against his thigh and kicked another pebble. It caught momentarily on the rip between his sole and the toe of his canvas shoes, a minute thing in and of itself, yet it only amplified his frustration of his situation entirely. Angelo hated that his parents had become so poor he had to move back home to provide extra income. He wished his father hadn’t lost his damn teaching job at the university because the kids at Stilwater U would rather get high than get high marks in his classes. All in all he wished that if God knew about where they were now that He’d send something akin to the miracles always so prevalent in His Good Book. Yet the long, numerous months of hardship were daunting to Angelo’s Catholic faith. They seemed to rough them away like crashing, monstrous waves against a cliffside.

Something shuffled behind his Destiny’s trunk -- something that made Angelo tighten his grip on his cellphone. He didn’t know how lethal a plastic bag full of groceries could be, but he thought maybe swinging it fast enough might do some damage at least.

“Hey man. Yo!”

FUCK! Angelo pivoted towards the voice with his heart in his throat. A man with a flat top hairdo (one that still reeked of the nineties) and a dirty winter jacket approached him, his arm draped protectively over his torn messenger bag.

“Hey brother. Can I talk to you for a second?”

Angelo shook his head, his Adam’s apple jumping.

“Come on, I ain’t doing anything shady. Look.” The man flipped the top of his messenger bag, showing off some silver and white gold pieces with chrome numerals embedded under their glass faces. “Just a couple of watches. See?”

“I’m not interested.” Angelo pulled his hand out of his pocket and pulled up his sweater hood.

The peddler pleaded a bit more, but Angelo didn’t want to fork over a dime for the man’s nicked merchandise. There were several patches sewn into the man’s jeans, and it looked (and smelled) like he hadn’t bathed for several weeks. It wasn’t any one certain thing, but Angelo swore he might have seen a glint of desperation in the man’s eyes. Suddenly, he couldn’t help but wonder how many days a stolen watch could keep someone fed while they lived on the streets.

He tried hard not to equate that ‘someone’ to his own family.

“Sorry man. I’ve got nothing.” said Angelo. He wasn’t lying. The grocery run busted his wallet; it made him feel a little better about refusing, in a twisted way.

“Man, this shit’ll cost you like six hundred at the store!”

Angelo turned his eyes towards the plastic end of his hoodie tie.

“Aw, whatever!” The peddler groaned. “Your lo-”

They were startled by a sickening crunch echoing off the old brick buildings around them. A man let out a cry of pain from around the corner. When Angelo saw a yellow spray can bounce off the sidewalk and roll over the curb, the knot in his stomach constricted and started folding over his liver.

The peddler was smart. He bolted long before several SMGs lit up the street with roaring, syncopated hums. But Angelo dove over the Destiny’s hood, and crouched behind its headlights.

In that moment Angelo thought of nothing but protecting his mother’s car. Above his own life was more afraid of the Destiny getting stripped apart by some motorhead thug. Hell, he hadn’t seen the Rollerz’ deep blue colors being flown about yet, but Angelo wasn’t about to raise his head in the middle of a gunfight to find out. A flag of any color wouldn’t matter in about ten seconds anyway -- the volume of gunfire in the street suggested everything would be blood red soon enough.

Angelo pulled his arms over his head, dumbstruck by the chaos unfolding around him. He pressed his shoulder against the Destiny’s headlight, evading the crossfire by making himself seem as small as possible. A thick heavy thud resonate from the street corner -- the fall of an amalgamation of muscle, fat, and organs that once was a living person. A second body, and a grisly scream, followed not long after. Then, a mighty engine roared, drumming along to Latin fusion. Clips heated the air, bringing with it the rotting stench of gunpowder, clips heating the air. Angelo thought he was boiling alive inside his sweater, his skin clammy against his sleeves.

The engine’s growl rose to a cacophonous wail, tires grinding over asphalt at breakneck speed. It was all too foreboding how that engine’s crescendo ripped the street apart. Without warning a gorgeous red muscle car rammed into the abandoned bakery. Fogged glass shattered over a white leather dashboard and the graffitied sideboards crunched and bent in the collision with the brick. Vibrant blue flames licked at the chrome bumper (its mods looking like a fortune of their own), and then exploded into a large orange cloud of fire. Angelo screamed as all of the Destiny’s car windows shattered from the impact, and his stomach flipped leaps and bounds. If the gangsters nearby failed to kill him, his parents surely would now in anger for his carelessness.

However, it went without saying that Angelo really wanted to survive this disaster. The ambience dimmed after the muscle car’s fatal explosion but not the danger itself. Rubber soles squeaked along the sidewalk, indicating that someone survived the street fight.

It took a lot of effort for Angelo to calm his heavy, rapid breaths. The corner of his license plate dug against his lower back as he pressed himself harder against the Destiny's bumper, trying hard to remain hidden. The resounding footsteps from the corner stopped -- maybe the survivor was calling someone or lighting a smoke. Maybe he was planning an escape route, Angelo thought in panic. Except for the flaming heap eating up the front side of the bakery, his Destiny was the only car on the block. No one would know right away that the tire was out but the desperate would still mistake it for an ample getaway vehicle. In any case if someone rounded the cars' side, Angelo's 5'11 frame would be hard to miss.

Angelo could smell an incoming fight when it came by. But what if the survivor had a gun? The bloody orchestra from earlier sounded like it’d been composed by twenty firearms back there. Angelo only knew how to deal with thrown fists and bigoted slurs; his skilled mastered in schoolyard brawls. Fuck if he knew if his uncle's odd self-defense techniques from his capoeira-hapdosool classes worked when the target wasn't stationary or permissive.

The footsteps resumed. Angelo’s heartbeats outnumbered the heavy thumps nearly a hundred to one. He couldn’t see if the survivor was heading towards the car but he figured that if the footsteps came to the car’s tail end he could sneak around the opposite side of the Destiny, tackle the survivor from behind, and disarm them long enough to run for it. He’d kick the gun under the car if the opportunity presented itself.

Angelo launched himself at the surviving gang member (who indeed had noticed the car) consulting the expertise he’d gained from one too many scraps as a teenager. Box the ears first to disorient. Then go for the gut. After the gangster wrestled himself out from below him, Angelo rammed the butt end of his palms just behind the gangster’s ears. The young man could almost see the little birds circling around his opponent’s crown as they danced around in the same spot. Then Angelo cupped his hand over his fist and swung them below the man’s rib cage. This sent the other stumbling further back, clenching his arms over his abdomen while howling in pain.

That seemed enough to cover a getaway, but Angelo wasn’t sure where to go or what to do next. There was a blue bandana hanging from the ganger’s low-seated jeans -- and beside it a .9mm pistol. He blanched at the thought of grabbing it, of holding such a frightening weapon for a microsecond even if he wasn’t going to use it. But if he ran away without disarming the man he knew his Converse shoes couldn’t outrun a speeding bullet.

Angelo was at a loss, but he hadn’t enough time to consider his options. A huge hammy fist rammed between his cheekbone and jaw; he could taste the coppery tang between his teeth. He reeled back, groaning while holding the side of his face. Then his collar lifted and pressed tight against the back of his neck. The Destiny groaned as his opponent tossed him against its side. The gun was still on Angelo’s mind, and he did everything he could to keep the man distracted from the advantage he had, pawing at the man’s grip of his hoodie. Taking another punch to the face Angelo still tried to knee the man in the groin -- he missed. He made a second attempt and it reached the man’s hip, the one opposite of the gleaming silver piece hanging from his side. Then Angelo tried to push back against his opponent’s thick frame but the weight differences between the two fighters made the task difficult.

One of the hands tugging his hoodie let go. The man’s forearm moved out of the way, giving Anjo a small window of opportunity and enough room for a decent swing. His fist landed square against the man’s nose, bone crunching under his knuckles. He grunted with his second shot and tried a third, his nails digging into the man’s wrist as he attempted to pry the second hand loose. Angelo thought he was doing rather well, and the man’s gritted teeth seemed like a good indication that he was putting up a pretty decent fight.

A sharp metal corner slammed into his temple.

There was no telling how Angelo wound up on his ass from his perspective. He sure as hell felt the hard kicks biting deep into his back and hip though, and when he writhed on the ground he only exposed unchecked points of his body that hadn’t fallen to the man’s abuse yet. The pain searing through his body was tolerable; it was all too familiar for him. What was new and terrifying about this situation was the dark barrel of a pistol staring down at him once the kicking stopped, like the entire cosmic being of the universe was contained in that small abyss. If God was on the other end of that barrel, Angelo couldn’t see him.

The man was panting from exertion. Angelo realized it would be the last sound he’d ever hear -- a stranger trying to catch their breath before stealing his. Not his mom’s off-tune singing to sappy Filipino ballads on her stereo or the peppy newscasters praising the brilliance of science and innovation on Discovery News, which his father watched almost every night. Hell, he was even a little nostalgic for the sound of his sister or brother pounding at the bathroom door, fuming that he’d spent half an hour too long in the shower.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He was going to die and leave his family behind because he wanted a discount on bok choy and chicken stock at the grocery store.

“D-don’t do this man,” he pleaded.

The pistol barrel rotated and clicked. In his panic Angelo couldn’t remember whether to recite a Hail Mary or the Lord’s Prayer. One palm grated against the pavement as he inched back, and he extended out the other as if to shield himself from the impending blow.

“Wrong time, wrong place, wrong move, kid,” the gangster explained, as if to hammer the last nail in Angelo’s coffin. He lined the barrel right over Angelo’s forehead; the young man trembled and shut his eyes.

How depressing it was that he could remember the blast that lead to his death, and so vividly too. Strange that it sounded subdued and far off, but maybe heaven actually did exist and he was floating off to the clouds now. Angelo could still hear that tiny pop at the beginning, the little gasp of breath that came a millisecond before the ignited gunpowder burst through the barrel. Thank God the whole experience was painless too. Except he did feel something heavy fall where his legs should have been, if he still had legs.

Wait -- if he still had legs?

Angelo opened his eyes, expecting to see a Kenshin resting against pearly white gates, a concession stand with unlimited stock, and a pristine NBA regulation-sized basketball court with marble flooring. Instead he saw Shivington again as he did from the roadside, next to his mom’s Destiny with the rusted blue paint and the spilled groceries, only the gangster’s bleeding corpse was over his (very real) kneecaps. Jesus Christ he was still alive! With legs!

He whooped in celebration, raising his hands in the air before covering his face in complete shock and disbelief. His eyes welled with tears. Strangled noises came from his throat, and he couldn’t decide if they were hysterical laughs or deep, pathetic sobs. The difference didn’t matter much because he was still alive and breathing, and until then he had never been more aware of the muscles and tissues comprising his body. The basketball court would’ve been amazing to have seen but --

“Hey!” The Brooklyn accent was a low whisper, but it cut sharp through the street’s dead silence. “Hey, kid, get up already!”

Angelo sat up, and when the lifeless body shifted over his shins the macabre reality of his situation dawned on him. The man’s hollow blue eyes were fixed on him, even as Angelo shoved the corpse off of him. He almost wretched at the blood sluicing through the open wound behind the man’s ear. It rolled past his cheekbones and dripped onto Angelo’s jeans. Freeing himself, Angelo crab-walked backwards at such a rapid pace he stumbled back onto his ass again.

A tall, dark man appeared, wearing a gold cross and a medallion that shone brilliantly against his black outfit and beret. He was walking towards Angelo as if his shoes could part the refuse around him and leave the concrete immaculate under his feet, and his lips were set in a thin determined line. A second man followed him, scanning the perimeter with a pistol of his own. A brown-haired Paul Walker look-a-like, he seemed like someone you would find under a green visor filing tax reforms rather than prowling the streets in a purple polo shirt and acid washed jeans.

“Hey Playa, get over here.” The more imposing man waved Angelo over with two of his fingers. Angelo obeyed, not wanting to risk a second run-in with a gun. He began to rise on his own but the darker man had reached him and offered him a hand.

“That was one hell of a beating you took. You alright?” The man asked, though he didn’t wait for a reply. He pointed to his companion. “I’m Julius. That’s Troy. You can thank him later.”

Troy directed a friendly nod towards Angelo but his sharp hazel eyes were fixed elsewhere, towards the shadows.

“It was pretty stupid of me to come here. I didn’t see the gang fight coming but now I’m kinda glad I didn’t call someone to pick me up. Shit, I could’ve gotten someone hurt.” Angelo said, thinking of his father, of how his nightmare might’ve been amplified if he had taken the hit for him.

“Tackling someone like that, you just might,” Troy replied. “You didn’t think of just running away like a sensible person would?”

“It might not look much to you, but this car’s pretty damn important.” Angelo pushed back his hair, grimacing while he rounded the car again. “Shit - I still can’t just leave it here. It’s almost in pieces. I gotta wait for the tow truck.”

“It ain’t coming son,” said Julius. “Not after this mess.”

Angelo groaned. “Then how the hell am I getting out of here?”

It was Troy who offered a solution. “If you wanna avoid more trouble you best come with us. Jules has a car around the block. If he’s willing, we can get you home safe.”

Julius dug his hands into his pockets. "I can do that. We can take care of the car too, for a price."

Troy's cigarette twitched -- the look he gave Julius suggested that like Angelo, he didn't like where the conversation was going either.

No one was this much of a Good Samaritan, Angelo thought. The gun -- and the fact that they were both wearing the same shade of purple -- tipped him off that these two might not be unlike his assailant. However, Angelo didn’t know of any other gangs beyond the big three in Stilwater prowling about. The Carnales rode around the Barrio with their bloody red flags waving all over the place, then there were the Rollerz in blue, and the Vice Kings downtown in yellow. He acknowledged the possibility that he was jumping to conclusions about his little color theory.

Still, Angelo shook his head and waved his hand at Julius. "Not to look a gift horse in the mouth but I'm still considering that ride."

"Hear me out," said Julius. "You might not trust us but judging from that little scrap you got in I can tell we're your only way out of Shivington tonight. But I also know you've got potential."

"For what?" asked Angelo.

"Take a drive with us. I'll explain it to you on the way."

Angelo turned towards Troy, trying to read his face for another warning sign broadcasting Julius' intentions. But the man who saved him looked more collected now, almost poker faced. He tossed his cigarette on the ground, stomping and twisting his foot so his Nikes left a fine cloud of ash underneath them. The way he flicked out a new cigarette seemed almost rehearsed, but his earlier perturbation didn’t resurface in this instance. It looked like Troy was falling in line with Julius' plan, leaving Angelo little choice but to follow suit.

He checked for any valuables in the Destiny, grimacing as he minded his head underneath the jagged remains of his driver side window. Then he picked up his grocery bag, which he’d left under the front bumper, calculating how many months’ pay it would take to repair the Destiny if it ever came back to him.

\---

Julius’ black Eiswolf waited in an alley a ways beyond the bakery. Angelo was permitted to ride shotgun, which got him up and close to the beautiful purr rolling under the sedan’s hood.

"Must've cost you a fortune," said Angelo, his eyes roaming over the upholstery.

Julius adjusted his mirror, bracing his arm behind the passenger seat and started backing out into the street. "I know a really talented mechanic. She's a damn fine racer too. Where do you live, boy?"

Angelo fidgeted in his seat. "Ezpata. Drop me off at Sonny's Corner Store and I should be good." He wasn't about to give his address to someone he'd just met. He had a friend who worked graveyard at the corner store not far from his parents' house -- he hoped she was on duty, and that she wasn’t too busy ringing Slurpees and porn magazines at the cash register to drive him the rest of the way home.

The conversation paused while Julius moved the car up to the street. Angelo tugged at his seat belt, taking momentary glances at the visor mirror in search of Troy’s pistol. But the windows were tinted, and reflected little from the back seats. So Angelo kept track of the street names they passed, trying to quell his nerves. He really was acting like a dumbass tonight... jumping at thugs, hopping into strangers’ cars. The horrible thing -- Angelo knew better; he knew all the dangers and what not to do, but he’d let fear drive him.

Julius cleared his throat. “I suppose you’re wondering why I agreed to drive you.”

Angelo shrugged. But little pinpricks crawled up the back of his neck, on the spot where he thought Troy would press his gun at any moment and reveal their charity was just a sick ruse to dispose his body without notice.

“I have a proposition for you, son. Something I think you should consider if you care for your life and all the fucked up shit going on in this damn city. Troy and I -- we’ve been holding some meetings at the Church in the Row, with some people who’ve gotten fed up with the way things are going down in Stilwater. But we’ve been getting desperate. Day by day things keep getting worse, and we just haven’t been getting the numbers we need to make a difference.”

The altruistic turn in Julius’ little speech roused Angelo’s attention. Were these men street vigilantes? And what the hell did Julius mean by ‘if he cared for his life’? What would happen if Angelo rejected them right off the bat? So far, nothing said eased his discomfort.

“You must be getting really desperate if you’re trying to recruit me. You saw where I was in the alley, didn’t you?” asked Angelo. He wasn’t sure if Troy’s short, angry sigh was directed against Julius or himself.

“I did,” Julius replied. He turned left at an intersection, continuing down the long boulevard connecting the Bavogian and Ezpata neighborhoods. “You held your own until the piece came out. But it don’t matter now. What matters is that you’re still alive and you’ve got potential. It’d be a mistake to waste it.”

“It was a mistake for me to be there in the first place,” Angelo admitted.

“Then why the fuck did you stay?” Troy cut in at last, raising his voice. “Everybody else had the common sense to book it, but you stayed with your car? There was no way you could have gotten out without us.”

“I told you, it’s important.” Angelo’s mother stepped up and became the major breadwinner for the family while his father tried to reestablish himself with book writing. The only substantial job she could find was way up at the Marina, where she worked as a secretary for a law firm -- the blue Destiny became one of the family’s lifelines.

“If you’d put your life on the line for a car, why not for a whole block? Or even the entire city?” asked Julius. His accomplice tried to squeeze in another interjection but Julius refused him. “Enough Troy. My mind’s made up. The only question is if the kid will make up his. Listen -- we’re having another meeting in three days’ time. Stop by the Row, and it’ll all make sense to you once we get there.”

“But what makes you think you can save Stilwater?” asked Angelo.

The car halted at another intersection. Angelo could tell they were in the Barrio -- the district was alive and bustling even at night. Lights of different sorts illuminated and decorated the boulevard. Shop windows and patio lounges were adorned with string lights, which cast a glow against the festival flags arched high above Julius’ car. There seemed to be a rhythm powered by music and human activity within every restaurant and pub lining the street.

A police car zipped by, almost hitting a street lamp as it rounded the corner of the intersection. A second car followed it, and then a third. They were all heading the opposite direction, towards Shivington. Their wailing sirens drowned out the festivities around them.

“How many berries have you seen cruising around here lately? This place seems like a goddamn paradise compared to Shivington, but I wager you get your fair share of the cops around here too.” Julius surveyed the intersection then continued down the road. “Call me crazy, but do you really think they’re doing shit around here? It seems to me like gang activity’s just gone up, and the Rollerz popping up in the ‘burbs are a testament to that.”

“If I’ve any clue of what you’re planning...” Angelo dragged his hand over his face. It’d become obvious that Julius and Troy were starting up a whole new street gang; the matching purple threads made sense now. “What you’re thinking of doing seems counterintuitive.”

“Maybe.” Julius sank into his seat, his shoulders sagging. “But it’s better than doing nothing. You saw what happened back there. That shit happens all the time, and the cops ain’t helping. You try to tell me it isn’t worth doing something about it. Anything.”

The Eiswolf came to a rolling stop beside the convenience store, the car’s ebony hood shimmering under white neon, stained sans-serif letters that spelled “SONNY’S”. Unfastening his seatbelt, Angelo stepped out of the car and nabbed his groceries. The door lights went out, leaving his two enigmatic rescuers fogged in darkness. It left Angelo uneasy; he never determined where Troy left his gun. He was sure he was still being monitored, and he’d never escape the hazardous pull he’d lead himself into.

Before Angelo could retreat into the store, Julius reached over and rolled down the passenger window. He looked up at him from the car window with dark, determined eyes.

“I can call up a few of my boys and have them take your car to the local Rim Jobs if you come to the Church. Or we’ll just leave it there, keep an eye on it for a couple of days until you reclaim your Destiny. We take care of our own -- anyone who’s willing to fly our flags. I’m not playing you. We’re here to fix the Row, and you can be part of the solution, son.”

The Eiswolf backed into the parking lot and turned back into the street, following into the rest of the Barrio traffic. Alone under the street lights again, Angelo sucked in the cool night air like his lungs were on fire. He thought about the conversation he’d just had with Julius, and the warning bells that came whenever Troy looked at him. Nothing in the world could keep Angelo from agreeing with Julius except the small iota of doubt still lingering in his mind. And yet there was a glimmer of hope -- a glimmer outshining Ezpata’s lights. Julius’ offer was questionable, yet it imbued a sense of purpose Angelo hadn’t felt in so long.

[i] - ‘child’  
[ii] - ‘Why?! What’s wrong with you?”  
[iii] - ‘Enough!’


End file.
